Madam Speaker, I congratulate you on your appointment to the chair. It is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne. While I am on my feet I would like to take a moment to thank the citizens and constituents of the riding of South Shore for putting their trust in me to represent them in the Parliament of Canada.
The throne speech provides an excellent opportunity for the government of the day to set out its vision for Canada and the steps it will take to achieve its objectives. We did not hear much from the government. It does not live up to the ideal of a government that has a vision for the 21st century. We heard the same story in its last throne speech. There were no changes, no bold new ideas or initiatives.
In his reply yesterday, the hon. member for Calgary Centre observed that the Speech from the Throne had little information or depth, denoting the government's lack of plans for the country. There was little discussion of issues of importance such as the need for parliamentary reform or financial direction in the form of a budget. Instead there were no new ideas put forth, simply regurgitation of previous issues that were not given the priority they deserved, or they would have been passed in the previous parliament.
The member for Calgary Centre was clear about the need for a reform of parliament and the need for the issue to be discussed and debated on the floor of the House. If there has ever been a time when we needed parliamentary reform, it is obviously now.
I am wearing a copper pin made from the copper roofing that came off the roofs of the parliament buildings when they were replaced.
As every person in the House realizes, the Parliament Buildings burnt down in 1916 and were rebuilt in 1922. The copper was actually replaced in the roof because in one instance the library was leaking and was contaminating some of the books in the basement. What the government chose to do at that time was to replace the roof and keep up the infrastructure of the building.
Sadly, that has been the caretaker attitude of the government. It is willing to fix the roof to keep it from leaking, and it is willing to keep up the basic maintenance of infrastructure and the physical structure but it is not willing to do anything about the nuts and bolts of parliament. It is also not willing to do anything about the job that we are elected to do here, which is to govern the country and bring about responsible and reasonable reform when it is required.
There have been changes and chances to modernize the system. The government recognized that by fixing the roof. However, why is the government waiting before it makes similar changes to replace, restore and change outdated parliamentary procedures? It is not rocket science.
There are issues that should have been discussed and debated in the throne speech. I would like to raise an issue that the member for Toronto—Danforth raised regarding food security. He spoke as an urban member and I certainly appreciate that. However, I would like to return a question to the member as a rural member of parliament and as a member of parliament who has some knowledge and some understanding of what goes on in rural Canada and the need for the government, and hopefully the member for Toronto—Danforth, to pursue initiatives that can help rural Canadians live on a par with urban Canadians.
The member spoke specifically about the need for safe food and safe water. I do not think there is any member of parliament who would disagree with that. I wonder if the urban member of parliament for Toronto—Danforth really understands what he is talking about.
If we are going to have safe food and safe water then the government has to stop downloading the costs on to the people who produce safe food and who we quite often depend upon to enforce regulations and put safeguards in place to protect our water supplies. I am talking about the farmers.
For years this government has continued to download the costs of running the Canada Food Inspection Agency on to the people who produce the food instead of downloading those costs on to the people who consume the food. If we want safe food and safe water then all Canadians have to pay for it, not just the farmers who grow the food. This is a much larger issue than that.
The hon. member went on to talk about the fiasco and the lack of action that the government has taken on the potato wart in P.E.I., which my hon. colleague from New Brunswick spoke about earlier. We have neighbours to the south who for years have used phytosanitary trade restrictions as a non-tariff trade barrier. The government should not be surprised by that. It has been several weeks since the potato wart was discovered in P.E.I. and there has been no plan of action from the government of the day.
It is totally unacceptable that seven or eight weeks after potato wart was found in P.E.I. that there is no plan in place. There is a vague promise that the government is going to do something. The member for Malpeque was quoted in the paper as saying that the government was going to do something. However, that is not good enough. That is absolutely intolerable.
There is nothing in the throne speech about fisheries. The same government was willing to give $500 million to integrate first nations into the fishery and has done nothing to ensure that integration takes place. The government is willing to spend $500 million on an issue and not follow it up. It is never going to be looked at again. The book will never be opened. It will be set down on a desk and the page will never be turned again.
We cannot continue to govern the country in such a manner. We need a long term commitment to our fisheries, to fisheries training and to stock replenishment.
There is absolutely nothing on the government's agenda except that it gave a bit of money, I believe it was $12 million, to the wild salmon in the inner Bay of Fundy. That is not good enough. We have recently realized through new DNA testing that the inner Bay of Fundy salmon stocks are one of three distinct salmon species in the world. We have the B.C. stock; the North Atlantic stock, which is most of Canada and Europe; and the inner Bay of Fundy stock, a separate species of salmon.
Gratitude and platitude from the government are not enough to save this endangered species. It is not enough to save the fisheries or to help agriculture or to begin to understand the diverse issues affecting ordinary Canadians.
I will return for a moment to some very important resource sector issues. The Americans continually and at every opportunity use the phytosanitary certificate as a non-tariff trade barrier. It is something we are used to. Those of us in the agriculture sector and in the forestry sector are used to that. We expect it, plan for it and lobby against it, but the government has turned a deaf ear to our cry.
Members of the government do not seem to understand the importance of our agriculture sector. They certainly have no comprehension whatsoever of the importance of our forestry sector.
Last week, the premier of Yukon, Pat Duncan, was in Ottawa lobbying the federal government on a serious issue that is arising in Alaska. It looks as if the new president in the U.S. and his new interior secretary are willing to open up the national Arctic wildlife refuge in Alaska to oil drilling.
If the U.S. builds a pipeline to that refuge, it will cut off the migration of the porcupine caribou herd which migrates from Alaska to Canada and from Canada to Alaska. The hon. member for Toronto—Danforth said he was willing to discuss important issues of the day with the Prime Minister. That is an issue he should be discussing with the Prime Minister, to get it on the agenda when the Prime Minister meets with the American president next week.
